


It's Like the Sun Came Out

by clockheartedcrocodile



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dinner Parties, Dirty Talk, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Marriage Proposal, New Year's Eve, Reunions, Service Animals, Service Top Francis Crozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22056928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockheartedcrocodile/pseuds/clockheartedcrocodile
Summary: New Year’s Eve, London. In an unfashionable house on a fashionable street, eight men who should never have seen 1854 are celebrating the arrival of 1855.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames, John Bridgens/Harry Peglar
Comments: 19
Kudos: 237





	It's Like the Sun Came Out

Crozier is the first to come home.

Well. It is not quite home yet. It is an unfashionable house on an fashionable street, with wooden floors and black curtains and no mirrors. But it is warm even in winter, and the fire is already lit. He has Bridgens to thank for that.

The sound of the front door closing behind him is intensely gratifying. Crozier puts his back against it and exhales heavily through his nose. He is a man who leaves parties early. James is not. They have learned to live with this.

London is alive with parties tonight. They stand on the very cusp of 1855. It all but trembles in their hands.

Crozier begins to remove his gloves. He can hear Bridgens in the kitchen, preparing tonight’s dinner, but he won’t bother him now. This house is rather too big for one manservant to manage, even in London where space is scarce. The man has enough to do tonight without attending to Crozier as well.

It had been a difficult party.

All evening, Crozier had endured conversations. He answered question after question and refused drink after drink. The wife of some lord of the Admiralty asked him why he had yet to write a memoir about the expedition; Crozier laughed without humor and told her to ask James. James laughed too, but only Crozier knew it was humorless. Theirs is a story that James can never tell.

Crozier wishes he would not try. It keeps James up at night, hunched over his writing desk in the corner. Some nights he loses himself in the blank pages, and Crozier must take him by the hand and lead him back to bed. They sleep in each other’s arms like children, in a bed far too large for them. Two to a sack. Two drawers in a chest of ten.

Crozier aches for that warmth. For now he contents himself with sitting by the fire and removing his shoes. He has been in full dress uniform all evening, and he is quite sore from it. There is a skin rug spread across the floorboards in front of the fire- not bear skin, though James had found the idea very tempting- and Crozier warms his feet in the fur.

James had insisted on this house. The country was out of the question entirely. It was too quiet, too remote. He dearly wanted to live in a crush of people, to wake at all hours to the sound of horses in the streets, to be unable to throw a stone without striking an Englishman. Crozier, to his own mortification, found that he agreed entirely.

Still they retreat from the world. Bridgens keeps the windows spotlessly clean but the curtains are heavy and black, blocking the view of any curious passers-by. The resulting dark interior is an extraordinary comfort even now, years after the bone-bleaching brightness of the wilderness. It makes the house feel private, secluded. Beyond vanity.

There are rather more chairs and sofas in the sitting room than is usual. As it should be- tonight, Crozier and James are having guests. They will not mind if Crozier is not in full uniform, and it is this thought which leads him to remove his coat and unwind his neckcloth. No formality tonight. Tonight, this warm, dark house will see its first party since Crozier and James took ownership of it. Tonight, it becomes a home.

Crozier left the party early, as is his custom. It will not do for him to be seen leaving with James, and at any rate, it is James who thrives on the festive atmosphere. He is much changed from the man Crozier once knew, but some things remain the same. He still drinks up attention like a lily in the sun. He still looks well in a uniform, though his tailor has had to make some alterations.

But he is ashamed of his false teeth, so he does not smile in public. He is ashamed of his hair, which he had once gloried in, but now it grows thin and lank like the hair of a much older man. He is not ashamed of Crozier, a thought which humbles Crozier every day, though he takes equal if not greater pains to conceal their relationship from the public.

The greatest change, perhaps, is the way he behaves at parties. James never says a word about himself these days, not of his beauty, nor of his valor, unless pressed to do so, and even then his stories lack his former panache. Crozier would not trade the man James is now for anything in this world or the next- he is alive, and God, that is enough- but he misses that arrogance desperately. It used to annoy him. He had been looking forward to being annoyed for a great many more years.

James is late coming back from the party, which Crozier expects. By the time the front door cracks open, bringing with it a curl of cold mist, the house has already been permeated with the smell of cooking meat. Crozier, still sitting by the fire, rises with a groan and goes to help James with his coat. “Home so soon?”

“Would you believe I grew tired of repeating the same old stories?” says James with a small smile. He shrugs out of his greatcoat and lets Crozier hang it by the door. He looks tired.

“Don’t make me laugh, James.”

“As if I ever could,” Then, a moment later, “It was a fine party. A very fine party.”

There is an expression on his face which Crozier does not like. Wordlessly, he offers James his hand, and when James takes it gratefully he leads him to the couch by the fireplace and sits him down. For a moment they look into the fire together, sitting shoulder to shoulder, not talking.

“I saw Jopson there, you know,” says James suddenly, as though he’s only just remembered.

“Oh? Looking well?”

“Very. His hair is black again. I saw him talking up Sir David’s sister.”

Crozier laughs at the thought. “Jopson? You astonish me, James.”

James smiles, looking a little more at ease. “She is a very pretty girl, but . . . dour. She has no tolerance for frivolity and silliness.”

“That suits our man very well indeed.”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I shall have to ask him about her tonight.”

James nods. Again that closed-off expression, again that look of worry. It is a look that reminds Crozier dangerously of himself. “Strange to think of us all together,” James murmurs. “For the first time since . . .”

“Yes.”

“And our first dinner party.”

“If you can call it that,” Crozier scoffs. “I don’t suppose many of our guests will stand on formal ceremony.”

He takes James’ hand in his and watches his face intently. He is not the man he was. Crozier knows this, and he doesn’t pretend otherwise. But his proud nose is still the same, and his fine cheeks are flushed with life and warmth, and though James never says a word about his own beauty anymore, Crozier knows it troubles him. Troubles him in a way it has never troubled Crozier, who knows he is ugly, and has never been anything else.

“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that,” says James, very quietly.

Crozier rubs his thumb over the back of James’ wrist. “I wish you wouldn’t fall into moods. Today of all days.”

“You would do well not to lecture me on that subject.”

“It will do you good to have them here,” says Crozier, gentle but insistent. He was never so talkative before he loved James. “It will do me good. It will do all of us good. You have lost your joy, James. I would not have that for the Northwest Passage.”

James breathes a laugh, more of a shaky exhale. “You’ve become a romantic. You never used to talk so.”

“It’s your own fault,” Crozier reminds him. “It was you who spent so many years winding me up. Now you’ll have to suffer the consequences.”

James laughs then, a real laugh this time. He is leaner than Crozier, and taller, and it is easy for him to slide an arm around Crozier’s shoulders and hold him close. Crozier glowers at him. James, mercifully, does not remove his arm.

“It is strange,” James says softly, “to think of them seeing this house. I think I have grown accustomed to hiding.”

“You never used to hide.”

“I didn’t want to. I wanted to be seen, and now, so long as I have your company, I think I would not mind being invisible. At least to the world.”

“I don’t want you to be invisible,” says Crozier, haltingly. “Men like you were not made to hide in the dark cupboards of the world.”

“Like a broken toy soldier.”

“For God’s sake, James.”

James’ jaw clenches. He shakes his head. “Forgive me. The number of questions I was asked today was matched only by the pitying looks I received.”

Crozier frowns grimly. “Did you dance?”

A moment of silence before the answer. “I could not bring myself to ask. I have seen the way the women of the Admiralty look at me.”

“You should have danced,” says Crozier, regretting it even as he says it. “I wish you had danced. I wish you would do all the things you once loved. You’re young. Christ, you’re young.”

“I will never be young again, Francis,” James says sharply, something more than anger bleeding into his voice. Something raw, and pained.

Crozier wants to take him by the shoulders and shock some joy into him. He wonders if this is how James felt all those years ago, biting his lip at him across the great cabin, saying the most outrageous things simply to make Crozier _look._

He does not do that now. Instead he squeezes James’ hand, feels how cold it is. He rubs the warmth back into his fingers with his own. The irony isn’t lost on him. Crozier can never get warm, never. He hasn’t felt truly warm for years. James’ embrace is the closest he’s come to it, and even then, the chill creeps in at the back of his mind.

He licks his lips, and doesn’t look at James when he speaks. “I will not insult you by reminding you that there are better lives you might build for yourself than the one you've built here with me. But I will remind you that . . .” He swallows, tries again. “We have survived. _You_ have survived. Why did you not survive, if not to live and live well?”

“God wants us to live,” James says miserably. He squeezes Crozier’s hand in return, a comforting gesture. “Do you know . . . when I received word that Sir John was leading the expedition, and that I should be his third, I thought . . . but it was a ridiculous notion. I was ridiculous then. _Ridiculous.”_

The spite that cuts through that word is shocking. Crozier feels his skin prickle with an answering rage. How dare he, _this man,_ turn that word inward upon himself?

“You were not ridiculous then,” he says, with great ferocity, “and you are not ridiculous now.”

James gives him a grateful look. “When the word came,” he says quietly, “I thought that all I had done, all I had endured, every feather I had put in my cap till then . . . all was nothing compared to this. I thought to myself . . . this is the start of my great, gilded life.”

Crozier has to kiss him then. He kisses him slowly, but with great intent, and he brings up one hand to cup the warm column of James’ neck. It is the sort of kiss shared between people who have not yet learned that they have all the time in the world. Crozier has not the talent for kissing, nor for making love, but in intimate moments James has told him that he lives for Crozier’s sincerity. That sometimes- perhaps only in this- sincerity makes up for other failings.

They part, and Crozier sees the color rise in James’ cheeks. Good. He nudges their foreheads together until their noses touch. “Tonight,” he says, with a little of his old authority creeping back into his voice, “you shake the brown study. We’ll invite the world in, if only the little corner of it that might understand our circumstance.”

It can hardly be called a party, truth be told. Only a much-needed gathering of souls who rarely write, rarely see one another, and, at times, find themselves desperate for one another’s company. Crozier can imagine the sort of look James might have exchanged with Jopson across a crowded room- a dark look, pregnant with understanding, between men who have seen each other starving. Not a look of fondness between friends. That must change.

Crozier is about to say something to that effect when hears the distinct rattling of a carriage pulling up on the street outside. A moment later, there’s a sharp knock at the door. Just one, as though something has been thrown against it.

Crozier sees Bridgens appear in the open hallway out of the corner of his eye. “Thank you, John,” he says gently. “I’ll answer it.”

Bridgens hesitates, then inclines his head and returns to the kitchen. James looks at the door, then back at Crozier. He lets out a shaky breath.

Crozier squeezes his hand one final time before standing, and as he does so, he is accosted by a thousand fears. Suppose no one comes after all? Suppose this house, with its dark wallpaper and shadowy corners, is offensive to them? Suppose they expect whiskey, rather than tea and wine?

These anxieties pass through him like a breeze through an open window and are gone by the time his hand is on the latch. He flings the door wide like a child, heart in his throat, wincing only briefly as the December air chills him.

Thomas Blanky is on the doorstep.

He is red-faced from the cold, his hair is wild, and he reeks of a public house. His boot is almost worn through but his crutches are finely polished, almost offensive in their beauty. One is still raised where Blanky had lifted it to knock on the door. He smiles like the sun.

“Ye great Irish bastard,” he says, and Crozier leaps forward to crush him in an embrace so fierce that he threatens to overbalance them both.

It’s the first time he’s seen Blanky in nine months, ever since he moved back to Yorkshire. Letters show up at the door every other week, informing Crozier of Blanky’s latest mischief, and Crozier takes great pains to write back promptly. Blanky teases him mercilessly for his creative spelling, which is how Crozier knows he enjoys his letters almost as much as Crozier does his.

The four of them have perhaps half an hour to enjoy one another’s company by the fireplace before another carriage rattles up, and Bridgens swiftly sets his cup aside and straightens his waistcoat, knowing who it is without seeing. “You needn’t fuss,” says James, raising an eyebrow. He nods at the door, which is already opening. “He does have a key.”

Henry Peglar peers in from the street outside, looking quite neat, with a wrapped parcel in his hand and a pair of plain spectacles hanging like a buttonhole from his coat. He wears them often now, Crozier has noted- his eyes are failing from too many nights spent squinting at the pages of a book. “Henry!” says Blanky cheerfully. “By God, come and join us, lad.”

“Mind your shoes,” says Bridgens, his eyes shining with excitement despite it. “I’ve just swept up.”

Peglar ducks his head shyly but scrapes his shoes on the mat. Crozier watches them bob and weave around each other like courting birds; Peglar offers the package, Bridgens says no, no, Peglar insists. He says that now that he has an income, purchasing new books for Bridgens is one of his greatest joys. Crozier wonders if he and James are half so revolting, and feels deeply grateful that if they are, only Bridgens is there to witness it.

“Haven’t you any other parties to attend?” James says teasingly. He offers to shake Peglar’s hand, but reels him into an embrace at the last moment.

“None of the _other_ molly houses would take me,” says Peglar wryly. He makes to shut the door behind him but no sooner has he done so when they hear a third carriage skittering roughly on the icy cobbles outside.

“Damn near broke me neck comin’ up the walk,” says Blanky, sipping his tea with a grand air. No milk, three sugars.

“What a way to go out,” Crozier grins. “The great ice master, mastered by the ice on a London doorstep.”

The third carriage heralds the arrival of Thomas Jopson, to general delight. Jopson looks smart in his street clothes, having evidently changed between here and the Admiralty, and although his sleeves are twice-turned it is done so tidily as to be hardly noticeable. His hair has been thoroughly blacked, and his cosmetics give his skin a rather too-healthy flush, but he smiles bright as anything when he sees Crozier and actually ducks his head in deference. “A happy new-year to you, sir, and to Mr. Fitzjames.”

“Belay that, Thomas. No sirs here,” says Crozier, affectionately wringing Jopson’s hand. “Come in, come in. I’d like to pour you a drink.”

Jopson’s smile widens as he greets Blanky and Peglar, and he compliments the neatness of the house with such fervor as to make Bridgens blush. All six of them begin talking at once, each eager to catch up with the goings-on in one another’s lives, and it takes a bit of doing before Crozier is able to pull Jopson aside. He notes as he does so that he’s wearing a flower in his lapel; it looks rather like an orchid, although where Jopson might have gotten an orchid in London at this time of year is a mystery to Crozier.

“All well with the Admiralty?” he says, his voice low so as not to spoil the mood of the party.

“Very well,” says Jopson, _sotto voce._ “They shall be sending me to Gibraltar next month.”

“I am glad to hear it. No word, then, of another search for the Passage?”

“None, sir. Mr. Crozier.”

“Frank.”

“Frank,” Jopson repeats, after a moment. Then, “I hope it is not too morbid for me to say it, but you, I think, will not mind it; I believe I should throw myself into the sea if they send me back. No, I will not go back. Leastwise, not under any other captain but yourself.”

Crozier feels oddly touched by the sentiment, and at a loss for words. Mercifully James, who is rarely at a loss for words, chooses that moment to announce the arrival of Edward Little, to a general chorus of, “Ah, there he is!” and, “You’re late, Edward, it’s gone 1855 already!”

Little has gained considerable weight in the past few years, Crozier is pleased to see, and has wrapped up warm in a thick wool coat with a scarf that all but obscures his face. He shakes hands all around, looking faintly bashful as though he’s not quite sure if he’s meant to be here, and Crozier notices that he limps heavily from loss of toes. He shakes Crozier’s hand last of all, and after a moment’s hesitation, Little embraces him. “It’s good to see you,” he says, his voice muffled by his scarf. Crozier pats his back and nods into his shoulder.

The last of their party takes another ten minutes to arrive. When he does, it’s with a shy, hesitant knock, and he’s met with the door being flung open and a chorus of, “Harry!” and, “There he is, come in! Come in!” and, “Welcome to London, do you recognize it?”

Harry Goodsir looks momentarily overwhelmed, but allows himself to be manhandled indoors until Bridgens shuts the door behind him. Crozier, remembering from Goodsir’s last letter that he very rarely seeks out the society of other people now, and is no longer used to it, awkwardly rescues him from Blanky’s over-eager handshake. He claps Goodsir on the shoulder and squeezes. “Harry,” he says. “How are you?”

“I am well, I am well,” says Goodsir, with an expression of genuine happiness. “It is _good_ to see you all again, I must say. I regret that I have not had time to call on you more, but I confess I have quite a horror of remaining in one place for too long, and I have scarcely stopped traveling these past three years.”

He looks well for it. His hair is as thick and curly as ever it was, and his skin has achieved a deep, nut-brown tan from time spent abroad in tropical climates. He is quite myopic, and wears glasses at all times, and his clothes are shabbier than those of the others, though Crozier suspects that this is from hard travel rather than lack of money. His coat has a fur-lined collar. His hands tremble when he shakes Crozier’s hand.

“Harry!” James cries, with an attitude of such happiness that it cannot help but bleed over into Crozier’s mood as well. He embraces Goodsir, who stiffens involuntarily, but returns the hug with honest affection. “Dear Harry, I have _missed_ you. Have you brought me a pet ourang-outang yet or am I to continue to suffer without one?” ****

“I’m afraid I could not fit one into my bag,” Goodsir says with a small smile. “But I have brought you pictures, if that will suffice.”

“It will more than suffice!” James takes Crozier by the elbow- brazenly, in front of all- and steers him in closer to the rest of the group. “I have seen an ourang-outang only once before, Francis. You cannot conceive of a more comically ill-tempered creature.”

Their talk of ourang-outangs is thankfully cut short by Bridgens, who, now that everyone has arrived, has begun ushering the whole company into the dining room. Crozier watches him bustling about between table and kitchen and steadfastly refusing the help of either Peglar or James, both of whom are insistent that they help with serving the feast. Bridgens deliberates for a moment as to whether or not to bring the whole kit out at once or to serve it in proper courses, but Blanky cries out, “Don’t ye stand on ceremony now, you old fool!” to general delight, and Bridgens, blushing, begins to bring the dishes out.

And what dishes! Crozier, who had spent rather more than he could reliably afford on them, finds himself wonderfully stunned by the array. He sits at the center of the table, James opposite, with Jopson on his right and Blanky and Peglar on his left, and adds his appreciative sighs to the general chatter of excitement. Hot onion soup with ginger and julienned vegetables, broiled salmon, oysters, braised beef and lamb tongue. Garlicked potatoes beyond that, and warm, fresh Yorkshire pudding with gravy, and the sweet smell of brandy and candied cherries that promises a steamed pudding for desert.

It is too much food by far, and every man there intends to make himself sick on it. They toast to absent friends, though it is not a Sunday, and they eat like men who know there will be more food tomorrow and the day after that. If Goodsir eats only vegetables and pudding, and not a bite of meat, then no one says anything about it. If James eats slowly, minding his teeth, then no one says anything about it.

Bridgens is soundly praised as the founder of the feast, and Peglar- seated as far from Bridgens as the seating allows, as is customary- gives him such scandalous looks over the roasted asparagus as to make Sir John himself turn in his watery grave. Goodsir, meanwhile, shows James one of his sketchbooks over dinner, allowing him to flip through it between bites of potato. Sure enough, the ourang-outang features prominently. One particularly magnificent page features a charcoal sketch of an elephant’s face and trunk, with a cat drawn beside it for scale.

“You haven’t been in touch with London affairs, have you?” James says thoughtfully, admiring the notebook.

“Not recently, no.”

“They re-erected the Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill back in June.”

“Imagine,” Goodsir murmurs.

Crozier stabs at a piece of lamb with more than his usual vigor. The Great Exhibition had not been so wondrous to him as it had been to James and Goodsir. It had opened scarcely two months after their rescue- God bless that dear man, Sir James Ross- and Crozier had been profoundly disturbed by it. A monument to the greatest technological marvels of their time, as glorious as it was temporary, and at the center of it all the great Crystal Palace, built only to be destroyed. There were times when Crozier wondered if all the Empire ever did was build crystal palaces.

“What **I** should like to know,” James was saying, when Crozier finally shook the thought and returned his attention to the table, “is if our own Edward intends to go calling tomorrow.”

Little, caught with a mouthful of carrot, chews hurriedly and swallows. “I will,” he says into his napkin, “with several of my friends. We shall be going from one end of London to the other, I expect. We’ve bought an enormous box of chocolates for the occasion.”

 _“Oh,”_ says Jopson, quietly, but with great feeling. “I had forgotten all about calling.”

“You must!” says James. “You must. Any young lady from here to Paris be happy to have you as a guest, I am sure.”

Bridgens seems about to say something but instead he lets out a loud cry and drops his fork. He gestures mutely at a dish of eggs at Goodsir’s end of the table, where a small animal is sitting upon the tablecloth, scooping out the yellow center of a broken egg and eating it as daintily as a lady.

“Good lord,” Little looks about the table uncertainly. “There is a weasel on the table.”

“I beg your pardon,” Goodsir says hurriedly, lifting the long rodent off the table and placing it upon his knee. He allows it to retain the egg. Crozier notes that the fur lining in his collar is no longer there. “I am afraid he goes with me everywhere now. He is quite tame.”

“Damn things used to eat my mum’s chickens,” says Peglar.

“Well, it is a neat creature, at any rate,” says Crozier. The weasel has again begun to eat the egg, scooping carefully with its claws and licking them clean. “See how it eats?”

“Quite the gentleman,” James nods. “It has better manners than our Tom.”

Goodsir, visibly embarrassed by the incident, begins to relax. “His name is Ikinngut,” he explains. “He is a very good listener, and he is hardly ever a bother to me.”

“Ick . . . Ickinnigut?”

“Ikinngut.”

“Ikinngut!”

Crozier offers another egg to the creature. Ikinngut cracks it open with surprising delicacy and begins to feast. Goodsir gives Crozier a grateful look, but says nothing.

“Did I ever tell you,” Blanky slurs, hauling himself out of his chair, “the one about the pigeon and the Irishman?”

“Oh God,” Crozier buries his face in his hands. “Oh _God.”_ ****

They have retired to the sitting room, half of them deep in their cups already with Crozier the only sober man among them. The rousing chorus of **,** “Thomas! Do go on!” and, “Tell us!” is more than enough to stoke Blanky into action; grinning, he lurches into the center of the room and starts bouncing on his heel.

“Now,” he says, with barely disguised glee, “so there were this pigeon, an’ it were charged with delivering messages ‘cross a great battlefield, only it were shot down afore it could get to the English. An’ so this Irish spy, he sees the bird fall, an’ holds it in ‘is hands as it dies, an’ he thinks to himself- _aye, faith an’ begorrah-"_

“Fuck’s sake, Tom,” Crozier groans.

 _“-I ‘ave to deliver this message! For Wellington an’ all!_ So he starts runnin’,” and here he begins skipping around the room, nimble despite his crutches, gasping with exaggerated exertion. The flickering firelight does ghoulish things with his shadow on the wall. “An’ he’s runnin’ across the battlefield like so, to get to the English side, when- _boom, crash!_ Stray shot from a nine-pounder blows ‘is leg clean off!”

At that he begins wobbling comically about, tripping over tables, nearly upending Peglar’s glass in his lap. Little is already sick with laughter, his hand over his mouth as he shakes uncontrollably. Goodsir looks somewhat appalled, but his mouth is twitching.

“Sweet Mary!” Blanky cries. “I must deliver the message! So says the Irishman. So he starts runnin’, an’ then- _boom!_ ‘Is arm’s off now!”

Here he tosses aside one of his crutches- James catches it, like an actress catching roses onstage- and lurches about with comical desperation. Crozier notices through the gaps in his fingers that at no point does Blanky actually lose balance, but he makes a damn fine show of it, and soon has James and Bridgens slumped over on top of each other, howling with laughter.

“Oh God!Now ‘is other’s arm’s off too!” Blanky sends his other crutch Jopson’s way and begins hopping across the room at speed. James, Bridgens, and Goodsir scramble to vacate the couch. “An’ sure enough . . . sure enough!”

He hurls himself down on the couch and laughs, laughs, laughs. Crozier leans over to smack him upside the head. “Very funny, Tom, very funny indeed. I see you’re laughing through the punchline, now.”

Blanky shakes his head, tears in his eyes from laughing. “So he gets to His Lordship,” he continues, breathless, “wrigglin’ along all legless an’ armless, an’ he says . . . my lord! My lord! I’ve brung the message from the pigeon! An’ ‘ere it is . . . _Coo! Coo! Coo!”_

Crozier shouts of outrage are lost amid the gales of laughter. He plays at leaping at Blanky, but Little, weak with laughing, pretends to hold him back, and it’s a good minute or more before the uproar dies down.

James is leaning against the back of the couch, looking quite undone by laughter. The firelight gives his harsh face all the soft rosiness of a painting. “God,” he sighs. “Dundy would’ve loved that.”

There’s a murmur of agreement from around the room. Goodsir, who has moved from the couch to the vicinity of the fireplace after Blanky’s antics, looks up. “There never was such an agreeable fellow, truly.”

“A good man.”

“And a good officer.”

“Do you recall how particular he was about his morning ablutions?”

“Twenty minutes, every day,” James sighs, smiling faintly. It is a good smile. “The damned peacock.”

“You are _forbidden_ to call any other man a peacock,” says Bridgens, to Jopson’s delighted alarm. Crozier smiles crookedly. Even now, as an officer in his own right, Jopson would not dare speak so to his former captain.

The story quickly gives way to another, regarding Lieutenant Gore and an ill-fated theatrical production on _Erebus._ Like a lead in the ice that widens with alarming speed, more stories follow. James talks of Dr. Stanley, who had once saved his life in China, and Sir John, who had loved him as he imagines a father must. Goodsir tells them about a crack in the wall at the Royal College of Surgeons where a young McDonald had once flung an upperclassman for telling lies about a lady from Stockbridge. Crozier tells no stories- he hasn’t the talent for it- but he listens, and laughs when appropriate, and feels some open wound in his heart begin to close.

It is good to tell stories of the dead. For a moment, the burden of their ghosts becomes a burden shared. “One for every man lost,” says Blanky, when he shows Crozier his crutches for the first time. There are notches in the wood. One hundred and twenty-one of them. “See, because on me worst days, feels like it’s only their memories what keeps me standin’.”

Midnight draws closer and no one has moved from their chairs. It is as though the dead sit with them at the fire. Here and now, they are not servant and master, captain and lieutenant, surgeon and sailor. Here and now, they are only men who have survived. Men who have stolen another year, and men who will steal the next one. Men who are held together with wool coats and hair dye and false teeth and prayers, but men who are alive.

“Everyone have change in their pockets?” James says finally, his eyes on the clock above the mantlepiece.

“I suppose you’ll have me throw a cake at the door too,” Crozier mumbles, exhausted. Peglar giggles into his cup.

“Well, we must at least cross the threshold.”

Crozier rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Yes,” he says after a moment. “Yes, of course. Let’s do that.”

As one the group hauls themselves to their feet, wobbling slightly from the lateness of the hour, excess of drink, too much good food. James’ belly has rounded out under his waistcoat, which makes Crozier smile a private little smile.

Little gets to the door first, but he waits for all the rest to arrive. James rests his hand on the door handle and pulls out his watch, counting down the seconds. The others do the same. All wait with baited breath.

“Five,” says James. He smiles with his teeth. “Four!”

“Three!”

“Two!”

“One!”

Every clock in London strikes the hour and James opens the door.

Peglar is out first, practically dashing out into the snow, crying, “Welcome! Welcome!” as all up and down the street, doors are flung open wide, spilling light out into the darkness, and matching cries of “Welcome! Welcome!” echo through the fragrant night air. Crozier hears bells, and singing. He does not follow at a run but walks slowly, minding the ice, as the others follow him out, crossing the threshold from one year into the next. Little, who had not removed his coat indoors- Crozier suspects that he never does- wraps his scarf tighter around his throat as the cold air fills their lungs.

Crozier tilts his head up to the moon and admires her shining face, the way she illuminates the streets even through the smog. She shines like the sun. Crozier, who is not given to whimsy, lets the moment take hold of his heart. 1855. A year that, by all rights, he should never have seen. A year that, God willing, he will spend with James.

He will cherish this year. And every year to follow.

Out of the corner of his eye Crozier sees Goodsir picking his way delicately across the ice, humming softly to himself. The humming soon gives way to the cadence of song, and though his voice is quiet, it is remarkably true. _“For auld lang syne, my jo . . . for auld lang syne . . . we'll take a cup o' kindness yet . . . for auld lang syne . . .”_

 _We must live,_ Crozier thinks. _A new year is dawning, and God wants us to live._

The house is quiet without ghosts to fill it.

Crozier is tired, and his head is ringing. He feels pleasantly warm all over as he adds another log to the fire, poking it until it catches and builds the blaze higher. James wanders in from the hall _en déshabillé,_ looking the happiest Crozier has seen him in recent memory. The sight of him makes Crozier’s breath catch in his throat.

“Not a bad party, was it?” he says, returning his attention to the fire with great difficulty. “A rousing success, I’d say.”

“I feel a new man,” says James from just behind Crozier’s shoulder. He wraps his arms around him and stoops to rest his chin on Crozier’s shoulder.

Crozier closes his eyes, enjoys the warmth of the fire before him and James at his back. “If ever you were a broken toy soldier,” he says quietly, “it is only because you have been loved too hard and too long, and perhaps you have had more adventures than are your due.”

James squeezes him tightly. Crozier can smell the lavender oil in his hair.

He turns in James’ arms to kiss him, long and hard, and hopes that some small part of his devotion is felt in that kiss. James makes a small noise in the back of his throat. With Bridgens dismissed for the night, they need not fear being heard. Not that they have anything to fear from Bridgens.

Crozier deepens the kiss and holds James closer, firmly, the way he likes. “I ought to ravish you, dear thing,” he mumbles into James’ mouth, just to feel James’ body stiffen in his grasp, the soft intake of breath. “Ought to hold you down and make you take all I have to give you.”

“Brute,” James murmurs, not displeased. Crozier feels excitement twist in his belly- what a glory it is to know how _monosyllabic_ James becomes when amorous.

“You bring it out of me,” Crozier kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheek, the line of his jaw. “I can’t help it if you need to be handled. A little adoring brutality is good for you.”

He has no intention of being brutal; not tonight, when his rough hands ache to be gentle, but the thought alone is enough to make James all but wrap himself around him, his hardness pressed firmly against Crozier’s. Crozier sighs happily and holds him even tighter, running his hands up and down James’ back, sometimes scratching with his nails in that way he knows James likes. “Is that what you need?” he murmurs. “After a fine night like tonight? Do you need to be taken as a man takes a woman?”

It is an old game between them, the words well-worn in Crozier’s mouth, but whether it is the lateness of the hour or the afterglow of the party, he finds himself profoundly moved by them. The firelight gives James’ eyes an exquisite light, and Crozier gently lowers James’ head that he might kiss his eyelids, one after the other. “Will you be a woman for me tonight? Will you be a wife to me?”

James’ hands are fisted in the front of Crozier’s waistcoat. “You know I can't,” he says, the familiar response. His voice is already hoarse with something like longing.

“I know,” says Crozier. He steers James gently backwards onto the fur rug by the fire and they lower themselves onto it, still clinging tight to each other. “You are a man, and I love you as one, and tonight, you are my wife.”

A strangled sob from James. Crozier undoes his trousers as he kisses James’ neck, gently, gently, for even now he can’t bear to see bruises rise on James’ skin. “Francis,” James groans as he strokes them both to hardness, no longer able to articulate anything else. “Francis . . .”

He overwhelms Crozier with quick and eager kisses as he wrestles himself out of his trousers. Their coupling is careful but swift, eager- the lavender oil, fetched from the bedroom that James never sleeps in, eases the way- and Crozier is all but undone at the first three strokes, clinging to James as though close to death.

 _“God,_ I want to spoil you,” he groans, helpless to it. “Men- ah- men like you were made to be spoiled, James . . . men like you need to be pampered, don’t you . . .”

“God,” James buries his face in the furs. _“God.”_

“Be my wife,” Crozier all but whimpers it, pressing himself against James' back and kissing his neck, his hair, the curve of his ear. His face is scarlet with exertion, his breath hot and damp. “Be my wife . . . my wife . . . _James_. . . tell me you will . . ."

“I will,” James cries, _“I will,”_ and his body shudders beneath Crozier’s, a violent, ecstatic shudder that almost unseats him. Crozier growls, fists his hands in the fur rug and spends himself hard, his whole body knotted up with tension before it relaxes, and he drops heavily onto James’ back.

They cling to each other in the silence, not talking. Crozier slips out of him after a moment and lies at James’ back, letting him have the fire. He will keep James warm. If there is one thing he is certain of in this life, it is that he will keep James fed, and he will keep him warm.

“I will,” James says again, his voice weak with pleasure.

Crozier puts his arm around him and buries his face in James’ hair. Something hot and bright is rising inside him. Something sacred.

This will be a good year. This will, perhaps, be the best year yet.

**Author's Note:**

> _It's like the sun came out  
>  And the day is clear  
> My voice is just a whisper  
> Louder than the screams you hear  
> It's like the sun came out  
> It’s like the sun came out  
> It’s like the sun came out_
> 
> “Start of Time” - Gabrielle Aplin


End file.
